My One and Only Fear

"Slowly once again, matters met with fate to create something so untouchable. You can't see it, you can't hear it, but you can feel it inside you! It enrages the child in us all and shows us that our fears really are always there, sitting right next to you, everywhere you go."

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This is my story about what happened to me. Imagine, for a moment, a black creature with red eyes and six-inch-long claws. It crawls on all fours, only being four feet and five inches in height. When this thing stands, however, it is fully nine feet tall. I encountered it several days ago...

My wife and I were walking home after a New Year's Eve party. We arrived around 12:45 at night. We both couldn't fall asleep, so instead, we had sex on the first day of the year of 2014. I was so joyful about it, because who doesn't like sex on the new day of the new year? After thirty minutes, we both went to sleep. But I soon woke up, at around 4:15, after first hearing a strange yell. I ran to my safe and got my sawed-off, double-barrel shotgun. (Janet told me we would never need to use it.) But now, I needed it to save her.

I ran downstairs after day, dreaming for what seemed like forever, only to find out that Janet was outside with the back door locked. I went to go unlock it, when she started to point behind me and say something. I didn't listen to her. That was my mistake, because as soon as the door opened, I turned around and saw the most terrifying, grotesque creature that stood four feet away from me. With either a blow or a punch, it knocked me out straight away.

I woke up to the sound of the garage door being opened up. But immediately I thought to myself, We don’t have an electric garage, only a door handled on! I ran down to my garage and saw Janet... She was covered in fresh blood that was obviously hers, and her right hand was missing.

“Holy shit! Janet, what happened to you, sweetheart?!”

She only responded with, “He’s coming after you, too... because you saw him!” Right after saying that, she fell to the ground. I reached for her, only to feel that her heart has stopped working. All it could have been was a fatal heart attack.

A week went by, and I went to her grave. I cried for a while before I could walk away, but I had to turn around and look at her grave one last time. Her right hand had appeared there, the middle finger out, facing me with a note on it. I hesitated before reading it, thinking that the creature would be waiting for me. But, I didn't think it would kill me with many people nearby. I ran toward it and read the note:

“You can’t hide from your natural fears.”

I dropped it and looked around. I saw someone in a tree across the cemetery. By now things were getting way too crazy for me. I yelled, half-sarcastically, at the man, “Why not just kill me in the sleep, so I don't suffer?”

He somehow disappeared after I yelled. I lost all sanity by the time a few days went by, and couldn't ever feel him when I was insane. I fell asleep one night and I saw that bizarre man in my dream. He was just watching me silently, and every movement I made, his eyes would follow. He seemed to be counting the breaths I was taking. But all of a sudden, he started to run towards me. As soon as that happened, I woke up with something huge and dark lying right next to me.

It was about to be the break of dawn. I tried to relax, and hoped that the creature wasn't him. I was going to just tap the creature to see what it felt like, but instead, I got up and started to walk outside in the dawn light. It got up and followed me. I stopped after a couple of blocks. It hurried towards me and grabbed my leg before I could even make a single movement. It kicked my kneecap, busting it open. I could see the bare bone, broken in tow, and the thing was laughing at me. I saw that it was carrying my shotgun. I took my chance as soon as he let go of me, and I grabbed it. I shot once, twice, missing both shots, and it came back again to bite my left hand off. It then shoved its hand inside my rectum, grabbed my appendix, and crushed it. I crumpled to the ground, but somehow made it into my house, and used my last moments of life to record this story.

My name is Riley Brown, and I hope he doesn't get any of you. I had my turn to stop him, but I failed. Please, if you have a gun, try to stop him before he kills anybody else.

One week later

”Officer Brown, your brother died. He was killed by an animal of unidentified species.”

"Arj, are you sure? Riley was a hunter, there's no way he would have…What in God's name is that...?!”

He stood and watched the two officers curiously, before he decided to go away. He left Riley’s left hand there, with a note attached, and the middle finger out. In a barely decipherable scrawl was this message